Sanatorium, a Hospital-Theme Bar, Opens in the East Village

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Guests at a birthday party at Sanatorium.CreditCreditNina Westervelt for The New York Times

By Joshua David Stein

July 13, 2016

It has been six years since Albert Trummer (center, above), the madcap Austrian bartender, was arrested after setting his cocktails aflame at Apotheke, a Chinatown speakeasy. The results were spectacular but a fire hazard. In the interim, he licked his wounds in South Beach, Fla., where he continued to experiment with combustible elixirs and plotted a comeback. Last April, with the opening of Sanatorium, a hospital-themed cocktail bar in the Lower East Side, the pyrotechnic mixologist finally returned — with smoke but no fire.

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Sanatorium, in the East Village.CreditNina Westervelt for The New York Times

THE PLACE

At the still gritty corner of Avenue C and East Second Street, Sanatorium seems like the waiting room of a debauched doctor. Lamps, the style found in operating rooms, hang above a marble bar. The walls are covered in Venetian plaster and are the green of surgical scrubs. Cocktails are prepared on operating-room trays, while shots are served in syringes.

THE CROWD

On a recent Friday night, Mr. Trummer’s Miami fans were present: beefy men with oily hair and wide collars, and toothpick-thin women with blowouts and form-fitting dresses. So, too, were cocktail nerds, who waited for Mr. Trummer’s return. (They were the mustachioed men talking to the bearded bartender about shrubs.) But the place was mostly occupied by young couples. A man with a flat-rim baseball cap and a woman with a flame-red dress canoodled while trying not to spill their drinks. Alas, she ended up wet.

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The Sanatorium owner Albert Trummer slices open a bottle of Champagne for a birthday party.CreditNina Westervelt for The New York Times

PLAYLIST

The D.J. Xavier Herit spins pulsating Euro house music at one end of the bar. Once a week, classical musicians like the New Vintage Baroque, a chamber ensemble, perform.

GETTING IN

The bar is ostensibly by appointment only, but the jovial bouncer accepted walk-ins without a blink on a Saturday night. The bar is spacious but feels increasingly less so after 11 p.m.

DRINKS

They are wittily named and expertly made, with as many ingredients as a topical ointment. The Waiting Room ($15), concocted by Mr. Trummer’s son, Jakob (also a bartender there), is made with tequila, cherry tomato, basil, balsamic vinegar, lime and habanero elixir. It comes with a slice of ibérico ham, carved from a leg hanging over the bar.